1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a refrigerator, and more particularly, to a refrigerator capable of reducing a width thereof easily by removing a hinge member from a body thereof.
2. Prior Art
FIG. 6 is a front view of a conventional refrigerator. The refrigerator has a body 101 for forming a freezing compartment (not shown) and a fresh food compartment 105 which are partitioned from each other by a partitioning wall and a freezing compartment door 107 and a fresh food compartment door 109 which are respectively installed on front sides of the freezing compartment and the fresh food compartment 105. On both corners of the upper front end part of the body 101, upper hinge brackets 111 protruding frontward are installed, and hinge pins (not shown) protruding downward are formed on the respective upper hinge brackets 111.
At both corners of the lower front end part of the body 101, lower hinge brackets 113 having reversed L-shape substantially are installed. Each of the lower hinge brackets 113 has, as shown in FIG. 7, a fixing part 114 formed with a plurality of screw holes, and a support part 115 extended horizontally from the fixing part 114. A hinge pin 117 protrudes upward from the support part 115, and accommodating recesses 108 for accommodating the hinge pin of the upper hinge bracket 111 and the hinge pin 117 of the lower hinge bracket 113 are respectively formed on the upper and the lower corner area of the fresh food compartment door 109.
Meanwhile, there is a recent tendency that refrigerators become large-sized more and more. There occurs a case that when such a large-sized refrigerator is conveyed, the refrigerator cannot enter a room through a gate of the room since the width thereof is greater than that of the room gate. When such a case occurs, a worker disassembles the doors 107 and 109 of the refrigerator from the body 101 to reduce the width of the refrigerator, and conveys the refrigerator into the room, and then the worker reassembles the doors 107 and 109 with the body 101.
However, in such a conventional refrigerator, since the hinge brackets 111 and 113 protrude from the body 101, even when the doors 107 and 109 are disassembled with the body, the width of the refrigerator is not reduced enough, whereby the hinge brackets 111 and 113 may be hooked by the edge of the gate of the room. Furthermore, in such a situation, the hinge brackets 111 and 113 may undergoes a damage. Therefore, the worker must disassemble the door 107 and 109 from the body 101 as well as the hinge brackets 111 and 113.
However, the hinge brackets 111 and 113, especially the lower hinge bracket 113, are steadfastly fixed on the body 101 by a plurality of screws so that they can support the doors 107 and 109 used for a long period of time while receiving foods to be stored in the refrigerator, the process for assembling and disassembling them is not easy and requires a lot of pains and time.